


Exspes

by SociopathicArchangel



Series: 25 Lives [9]
Category: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (Short Film)
Genre: F/M, the author is sleep deprived and hungry, unrestrained crying in the distance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 16:31:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3943753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SociopathicArchangel/pseuds/SociopathicArchangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Are you actually pulling a ‘power of friendship’ card over me?”</p>
<p>“God, no,” he scrunches up his face, “No, I’m asking for a truce. Because let’s face it, this is the only card we can play right now.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exspes

COLD.

The word flashes in the mind as they float aimlessly in the water. They can’t move; it’s too cold and their bones are too stiff. FROZEN flashes this time. And then WHERE? Followed by HOW?

Something hot stirs in their stomach. It builds and builds until it intensifies enough to flicker PANIC and OPEN YOUR EYES in rapid succession and they struggle to crack their eyes open, managing to only lift their eyelids by a few millimeters.

The instinct to pull their limbs – ARMS, LEGS – takes over and they try to make them budge, but to no avail. HARDER. They focus all their strength on their limbs and tug. Their arms sluggishly move by a few inches.

The legs are next. The joints are harder to control, but with enough effort, they move, even though it’s just a short distance. Lifting their lead-heavy eyelids is a challenge, and when they are able to, they are met with the sight of darkness with a speck of something bright at the center.

LIGHT. Light, huh? It is…well, it looks good. It looks nice. Isn’t light supposed to give off heat too? And heat fights off the cold. SWIM. They attempt to lift their arms and kick their legs, only to have them sluggishly wave around the water.

Suddenly, the heat is back in their stomach, burning this time, to the point where they can feel their bones be warmed and if it wasn’t helping with the cold, they would have clawed it out because it _hurt._ It feels like it’s trying to burst through their skin and evaporate the water.

There is a sharp stab of pain in their gut, followed by a violent pull that has them shooting up the water and closer to the light, stomach first and back arched.

They would have screamed if it weren’t for the water that assaulted their mouth the moment they opened it. They come to an abrupt stop just as something lands with a dull thump on the light. No, no, not the light. There is…some sort of barrier between the water and the light. The thing landed on the barrier.

It moves, and the light is enough to make out the silhouette of limbs and the vague image of a face.

HUMAN, the mind flashes. The ‘human’s face contorts as it looks at them before it stumbles back, landing on the barrier again, butt first this time. It shouts something, distress bleeding into its voice and they hope it isn’t directed at them.

The human turns it head around frantically before its gaze finally settles on them. It takes a deep breath, lets it out – SIGH – and lifts its fists.

Both fists slam hard against the barrier between the water and the light. Cracks spiderweb across the surface immediately and the barrier breaks apart, some debris falling down towards the creature in the water. The human pushes aside the broken pieces of ice and reaches down, red liquid from its hands that now has odd sticks poking out of it tainting the dark of the lake, and grabs their limbs.

As soon as their head is lifted out, they open their mouth to suck in air and their chest feels lighter immediately, warmth coursing through their body. They cough as their lungs start to push out the liquid and grip the human’s clothes tighter, seeking heat.

The human doesn’t protest, but wraps its arms around them, “There you are, Paige.”

 

* * *

 

 

Manny opens his eyes and shuts them right after when the fluorescent lamp shines directly above him. There is a shuffle, footsteps, a click and the light behind his eyelids disappear.

He slowly lifts them to see a darker room. Shrignold is by the light switch, Harry is sitting on the floor with a mug and Robin is on the bed beside the wall opposite to him, nursing his head.

Manny sits up and nearly falls down when a wave of dizziness comes over him.

“What happened?” he croaks, choosing to lie back down again.

“You all collapsed,” he hears Shrignold say. Manny opens one eye and turns to Harry. The man takes a swig of his coffee, “I had a bunch of weird visions.”

“Me too,” Robin says, “I thought it was a horrible zombie movie.”

“Zombie movie?” Harry raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah. First thing I saw was a clearing in the middle of a creepy forest. You know the kind you see in movies where everything’s taller and darker than it should be?” Robin massages his temple, “And then all of a sudden, a hand shoots out of the ground – nails torn off, bloody and all.”

“What else?”

“It stopped right there,” he turns to Harry, “What about you, did you get anything?”

“We were chasing several spheres of light.”

Robin snorts.

“What about you, Manny?”

Manny pinches the bridge of his nose. “Well,” he breathes in, “I saw a frozen lake.”

“And?”

“There was someone in the water.”

“In the frozen lake?”

“Yeah.”

“Must be cold.”

He scoffs, “You think?”

“Did they do anything?”

“Well, they…yeah, they did. They suddenly opened their eyes and they were, like, these really, really green irises. Apple green, maybe, like Harry’s. They opened their eyes and started screaming underwater and pounding on the ice.”

There is a high-pitched whine. Manny covers his ears and shuts his eyes, rolling over as he tries to get away from the noise. He can feel his head throb as it gets louder.

“Manny? Manny!”

The whine dies down and he slowly cracks his eyes open, chest heaving with every breath.

There is a red string that goes through the window glass.

Following where it leads, it comes to a stop at his chest, rooted in it. “What the – ” Manny reaches down to pull it, but his hand goes through. He falls backwards, eyes wide and starts clawing at his chest.

“Manny, what are you doing?”

“Manny!”

Shrignold runs over to grab one of his arms while Harry holds back the other. Manny’s breaths are getting faster and shorter. “Don’t you see it?”

“See what?”

“There’s – ” he turns to Harry, “There’s a red string through my chest.”

“No, there isn’t!”

“Yes, there – ” he stops and looks down. There is. The red string is still there but he realizes that the rest of it was floating in mid-air, phasing through the window and outside. The image of the frozen lake flashes in his mind again.

And then a name. One oh so familiar.

Manny pulls his arms back and walks up to the window, watching as the string shortens with every step he takes closer to it. He looks outside to see it weaving through buildings and down the road.

“Shrignold, can you tell if there are Concepts nearby?”

“Yes.”

“Are there?”

“There’s the three of you.”

That will never be not weird, identifying as something non-human.

“So, there’s no one else?”

“No.”

“Because there’s a red string coming from my chest, phasing through the window and leading down the street that apparently only I can see.”

Robin turns to him, “What?”

The image of a girl screaming under ice flashes in his mind again.

Manny blinks, “What?”

“What?”

Harry stands up, “Stop saying what!”

The girl has apple green eyes and hair looks like a washed-out rainbow. Further out the lake, there’s a forest filled with tall, snow-covered trees.

Manny puts a hand to his head.

“Manny, are you hallucinating?” Harry’s eyes are filled with panic as he turns to him. Manny presses his lips to a thin line. He shakes his head, turns his back on the window and puts on his best smile.

“I’m fine.”

 

* * *

 

 

They’d lost the need for sleep a long time ago and mostly just do it for comfort or when they’re bored. Manny has been trying to get some shut-eye for the past few hours and they’re already halfway through the city without him getting any progress. In fact, trying to get to sleep is just making him more tired than he was when he started.

The car stops as they are hindered by traffic again.

Robin sighs from the passenger seat, “How thick do you think is the snow this time of year?”

Harry shrugs, “I don’t know. We’ve only been to Vancouver two times.”

Manny tunes out the rest of their conversation and chooses to look outside the window instead. They’re at the very edge of the lane so no other vehicles are obscuring his view of woods just a few meters away from the road. Given the time of the year, all the leaves are missing and the tall trees are covered with at least an inch-thick of snow.

Manny hisses again as images assault his head. The snow-covered forest, the lake, the girl screaming underwater.

He raises his head and realizes that he is, in fact, looking at the very same forest he’s been catching glimpses of for over a week.

His brow furrows. Another shock of pain shoots up his head.

Manny fumbles with his seatbelt and door handle to step out the car. Harry and Robin both stop talking to turn to him.

“Manny?”

His foot sinks into deep snow and he shivers. Manny lifts it out with a grunt and carefully trudges towards the forest.

“Manny? Manny, get back here!”

The car door slams behind him as he hears Harry and Robin get out of it. He doesn’t slow down. The red string materializes into view again and he jumps when it connects with his chest, but calms down after it doesn’t do anything.

The pain starts to crawl back. He moves forward to keep it at bay.

“Manny!”

“I saw this,” he says. Behind him, Robin yells an incredulous, “What?!”

“I saw this forest in one of my visions.”

“You’ve still been having those?”

“Yeah and –” his foot sinks a little deeper than he expects as the slope deepens, “ – the lake shouldn’t be too far from here.”

They follow the slope down, past several more trees before they come to a clearing where there’s a perfectly frozen lake in the middle.

Manny’s breath catches and when he steps forward, the thick layer of snow crumbles under his weight, sending him tumbling down towards the icy surface while Robin and Harry yell in panic, racing after him.

He lands face-first on the ice and groans as he pushes himself up. When he opens his eyes, there are a familiar green pair of them peering up at him from under the water.

Manny yelps and backs away frantically.

“Harry! Robin!” He turns to where his friends are just in time to see them run on the frozen surface of the lake and slip. He winces.

He turns back to the water and has a moment of déjà vu when he sees the person with the washed-out pastel hair looking up at him, except they’re not screaming. Her name flashes in his mind again and it clicks.

“Holy shit,” he mutters as he looks around, trying to figure out what to do. Should he get her out of the water? Should he just leave her? What could he use to get her out the water, inhuman strength was Robin’s area. He looks back at his friends again and sighs when he sees that they haven’t made progress.

Manny looks back down at Paige eyeing him curiously before lifting up his fists. Well, his bones always knit together perfectly.

He slams both fists on the ice and watches as his knuckles burst through his skin upon impact, mentally rejoicing when the ice underneath him cracks to prove that his pain was worth it. He pushes some of the chunks of ice aside to pull Paige out of the water, thankful for the cold to numb down the agony in his hands.

“There you are, Paige.”

 

* * *

 

 

They’ve got a new occupant in the car who is nearly devoured by the blankets around their body. Harry’s breaking the speed limit as he drives down the road and the radio fizzles every now and then. Manny’s nursing his head in the backseat.

Shrignold meets them at the hotel they’ve booked for the night and keeps Paige company in the living room while Harry yells at Manny.

“Can you explain to me why you just literally pulled the source of our problems out of the water?!” he seethes. Manny has the good graces to look sheepish. When he doesn’t say anything, Harry continues, “You know, what – whatever. Just…if people come looking for her, we turn her over.”

“What if they’re Concepts?”

“All the better.”

“Harry!”

Harry massages his forehead and exhales loudly through his nose. “Manny, I am tired, okay?” he says, “We’ve tried to help, we’ve tried to put up with them, and what do we get? A whole load of trouble we don’t deserve and now we have run around trying to either avoid these guys or just sit through another life with them.”

“That’s exactly it, Harry, don’t you get it? They missed their mark and look – we started seeing weird things and my visions led me to find her.”

“What made you think you should have acted on them?”

“I don’t know, maybe the fact that I got _shocked with pain_ every time I tried to fight it.”

Harry shuts his mouth. Manny looks down.

“Sorry,” Harry says.

Manny shakes his head, “It’s okay.” He sits down the bed, “Hey, maybe she won’t be so bad this time? I mean, not all of their versions were horrible, were they?”

“They were,” Robin and Harry say in unison.

Manny winces.

Robin cracks the door open to look at Shrignold and Paige in the living room. Their new arrival is sitting at the very end of the couch with her knees to her chest, staring wide-eyed at Shrignold who is squirming under her scrutiny. His wings flutter nervously every now and then.

“She looks different,” Robin says. Harry and Manny move to the door as he points to her. “Her hair’s a little faded, lots of it are black, her skin…I think it got bleached.”

“Is she wearing a… _funeral dress?”_ Harry whisper-hisses.

“Yeah, I think she is,” Manny mutters, “In fact it kinda looks like the one she…wore…the last time…”

His eyes slowly widen. “Holy shit,” he says once again.

“Horrible zombie movie?” Harry asks.

“I told you!” Robin says.

“Please tell me I did not just pull out an undead.”

Harry pulls both men back inside and shuts the door.

“Okay, listen,” he says, “We still need confirmation on whatever’s happening.”

“That’s what Shrignold’s here for, isn’t he?” Robin asks.

Harry nods, “But whatever it is, we are not getting involved.”

Manny raises a hand, “What if it involves us?”

“Only and only on that exception do we step in,” Harry raises a finger at that. “Anything else is a no. We’ve had centuries’ worth of trouble already.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Obviously? No, she’s not human,” Shrignold says. Paige is currently asleep in one of the bedrooms while the boys are discussing the recent development in the living room. “She isn’t a Concept either.”

Manny plays with the cuff of his sleeve, “What is she, then?”

Shrignold shrugs.

Harry sighs and massages his forehead again to ease out the building headache.

“Whatever she is, I’ll tell you one thing – ” at that, the trio turn to the personification of love, “ – she can see my wings and I’m sure they’re hidden from human sight.”

“So, she’s somewhere in between?” Robin suggests, “Not a human, not a Concept.”

“I suppose.”

“What are we going to do with her?” Manny asks.

Harry’s voice raises in volume, “Can we just leave her somewhere?”

Everyone blinks. The winged-creature on the couch slowly turns to him, “Harold, I never thought I’d see the day.”

The redhead narrows his eyes, “I told you to never call me that again.”

“You know exactly _why_ I call you that sometimes,” he says, “If your conscience can shoulder it, by all means, leave her somewhere to rot and be eaten by whatever can be after her.”

“What would be after a drained Concept?”

Shrignold snaps his fingers, “Think about it, guys.” He slowly looks at each of them, “Remember that the ones who declared and carried out the judgement were the Voices. None of us, and I mean none of us, have the ability to rewind and rewind strings of lives. I mean, sure, you saw the Council act as jury during the trial and all, but carrying out the actual punishment itself?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that there’s a reason why you three were chosen to watch over them.”

Their faces scrunch up for a second.

Robin starts, “Holy shit. _Holy shit!”_

“What is it?” Harry turns to him.

Robin puts a hand to his mouth to stifle his growing laughter, cursing every now and then. “Oh my fucking hell, we should have seen it coming the first time we met them again.”

He schools his features and manages to get a straight face for about six seconds before his lips start twitching upwards and he laughs again. “T-they actually said – ” Robin swallows and clears his throat when his voice comes out a pitch higher, “The Voices actually said _watch over them._ I remember, during the end of the trial.”

Harry’s eyes widen, “Holy _shit.”_

“That’s what I said!”

Manny sounds incredulous, “So all the times we’ve been running into them, it wasn’t coincidence?”

“Haven’t we seen enough conspiracy shows to know nothing’s ever a coincidence?”

“How are they even doing that?” Harry turns to Shrignold, whose eyes are glowing so brightly in the dim-lit room, they looked like lamps.

“I’m suspecting Fate. The Voices can reincarnate them, Fate sets everything up.”

“There’s a Concept of Fate?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow,” Manny brings his knees to his chest and hugs himself, “That makes me want to lie down and have an existential crisis.”

Beside him, Robin mutters, “So much for free will.”

Shrignold laughs, “Sometimes, it’s real, sometimes it isn’t.”

“So what, since we’re supposed to watch over them, which – wow, now that I think about it, I guess that meant their abilities too, so we should’ve seen being mutated coming,” Harry mutters the second part under his breath, but they still catch it, “Are we supposed to…watch over her even like this?”

“Do you want to consider the possibility of being judged by the Voices and the Council?”

The answer is a unified, horrified, ‘NO’.

Then, it’s followed by a collective sigh. Harry calls room service for bottles of alcohol.

 

* * *

 

 

It takes a lot for them to be pissed beyond belief, so Harry’s setting a record when he’s getting slightly tipsy at five in the morning with a bottle still in hand. The others have drunk their fair share and are still sober and moved on to getting Shrignold to drink.

“Come on, one glass,” Manny pushes said glass that’s nearly filled to the squirming Concept of Love.

Shrignold inches away, hands raised, “I think I’ll decline.”

Robin snickers, “Lightweight.”

“I haven’t even consumed alcohol before.”

“Whoa, really?” Robin climbs onto the couch, reaches over to take the glass from Manny and then shoves it at Shrignold’s face. He leans back onto the couch with a yelp and the glass spills as it misses his mouth.

“Robin!”

“One glass, Love!”

“Excuse me, was that a flirtation?”

“No, that was your name, you nitwit. Don’t be disgusting.”

“No, that was _not_ my name. Don’t call me that, it feels weird – ”

“Shut up and drink.”

Manny pins him to the couch by spreading his arm in front of him and pushing him back with it while Robin grabs his jaw, pulls it down and then tilts the glass so the alcohol spills into his mouth. Shrignold chokes and coughs before sitting up to push Manny’s arm away and grabbing the glass from Robin.

“A-alright, al – _ugh, that’s disgusting –_ don’t drown me.” Harry giggles at his plight from the opposite couch, where he’s sprawled out. Shrignold leers at him while Robin and Manny fistbump each other.

The Concept stares at the offending drink in his hand before scrunching up his nose in disgust, closing his eyes and then throwing his head back to drink everything in one go. The others holler and cheer.

He finishes the drink with a gasp and drops the glass to run to the bathroom. Thankfully, Manny’s battle reflexes kick in and catches the glass before it can hit the floor. Shrignold shoots them one last look before he coughs and washes his mouth in the sink.

Harry makes a noise as he sits up and takes a drink straight from his bottle. “You know if you’d told me before, like, way before, that we’d be best friends with that dork in the bathroom –”

“Who can hear you, by the way!”

“ – and that we’d try to get him drunk after we hear that he’s never had alcohol before, I would have laughed at your face. Not even cry and say ‘yeah, that sounds like me’ because this really did not seem possible.”

Robin pours himself another glass as he chuckles. He raises his head and sees the door behind Harry crack open for someone to peek out. His eyebrows slowly go up and Harry sees his look. The older man turns around to see Paige spying on them curiously.

When their eyes meet, she brings the door a little closer to her and slinks back.

“Hey, it’s okay,” He says just before she can close it completely. “We’re just getting drunk.”

“Which is not advisable given our situation, by the way,” Shrignold has finally emerged the bathroom and pulls the bottle out of Harry’s hand. Harry makes a face, “Yes, I know. We should be ready and make like Mad-Eye.”

Shrignold sighs, “How many times do I have to tell you I don’t get references?”

“About all the time.”

“Ugh, he’s right though.” Manny groans, “Concept or not, I’m a stupid lightweight.”

“Glad we’re all on the same page.”

Shrignold bullies all of them into cleaning up and for Harry to get some sleep since he was the one whose bloodstream was mostly likely eighty percent alcohol at the moment. Robin and Manny help him gather all the bottles and wipe the coffee table clean.

They don’t notice that their guest has slipped out her bedroom, grabbed one of the open bottles that still have a fourth of its contents left and curiously lifted it to her mouth.

They all turn to the coughing noise behind the one of the couches.

Paige still has the bottle in one hand while rubbing her throat with the other. She gives the bottle of rum a stink-eye and sticks her tongue at it.

Manny elbows Shrignold, “You know, she used to drink these huge gangsters under the table like crazy.”

Robin walks over to get the bottle out of her hands and she eagerly shoves it at him. Manny’s eyes soften as he looks at the mass of black that now consists her hair, sparsely graced by the occasional pastel strand or two. At least her eyes were still the same, albeit more curious than cunning and powerful like they were supposed to be.

“It’s kind of funny that we’re supposed to watch them,” Manny says.

Shrignold’s brow furrows, “Is it?”

“Yeah, I mean, we used to be their playthings, you know? And now they’re…helpless and…” he watches Paige poke the couch and find it soft and bouncy. A smile stretches across her face before she presses her hand against it and pushes it down, watching as it pushes against her force. Manny leaves his sentence hanging and shakes his head, carrying on with gathering all the bottles towards the door.

 

* * *

 

 

The hassle of finding a way to bring Paige with them when they got back to the UK was avoided when Shrignold offered to fly her over while they took the usual route. They met up a few blocks from their old neighborhood (their house was still a burnt mess and didn’t know why it hadn’t been rebuilt yet), since it was a familiar place to their friend by now.

It turns out Paige loves flying and does, in fact, see Shrignold’s wings.

Paige childishly waves goodbye to her new winged friend as she’s ushered into the car by Harry. Shrignold takes a step back, looks at the others for help (all of which who snicker, the ingrates), before waving back. He sighs in relief when they finally drive down the road.

“So you have a new friend now, Paige?” Manny asks. Paige nods enthusiastically and makes a noise as she plays with her seatbelt.

That was another thing they found out, her inability to say anything coherent. It would have been an easy hurdle to overcome if she could just write down what she wanted to say, but instead of writing things in English, she wrote them in weird inky symbols that only Shrignold could translate. So unless they had the bug nearby, it was charades until he got there. A lesson they learned the hard way when they had to explain to her the concept of showers, changing clothes and why funeral dresses were not acceptable to wear in public 24/7. She kept on asking questions and they couldn’t understand a word she was writing.

It’s only a few seconds before they pass by the spot of their old house.

Paige ‘s eyes immediately light up and she twists in her seat so that she can look at the house while the car continues to go down the road. She thumps her hands flat on the window and whines.

“Paige, what is it?”

She turns to Manny, points back to the house and whines again.

“That was our old house, it burned to the ground.”

Paige twists back to face him, grabs his jaw and turns it to the direction of the house, furiously pointing at it.

“Do you recognize it?”

Robin and Harry give them alert looks from the rearview mirror.

Paige points to her eyes, makes a c with one hand and then points to the house.

“You’d like to see it?”

She nods eagerly again. Then she points to her eyes once more, makes the c with her hand, holds one palm up, points to it and then points back at the house. Manny makes a face, “You saw something _in_ it?”

Paige nods, gives him two thumbs up and slumps back on her seat.

“What did you even see there, there was nothing but ruins.”

Paige puts both hands to her face and lets out a muffled shriek of frustration. Robin sighs, “Harry, turn the car around.”

Harry blinks incredulously, “What?”

“Turn the car around, Harry.”

“Robin – ”

“Turn.”

“Robin, I am – ”

“The car.”

“ _Robin.”_

“Around!”

“Chri – okay, I’m turning around.”

They all move forward slightly as the sedan comes to a stop. Robin meets Manny’s eyes in the mirror as Harry turns the wheel. “You know he’s never going to win an argument with me.”

Manny laughs while Harry rolls his eyes.

They wait for Harry to pull up across the burnt mess of wood and paint. Paige undos her seatbelt and crawls over to Manny’s side of the car. The boy yelps, undos his own seatbelt and then moves away from her. Paige presses her face to the glass and then points across the street.

The house is nearly indiscernible in the dark of the night, still surrounded by the dusty, faded police tape that’s keeping it off limits.

Something bright flickers in the middle of the piles of charred wood.

Paige pushes down the car door’s lock, pulls the latch and runs across the thankfully empty street.

“Paige!” Manny runs after her. Harry and Robin struggle with their seatbelts to chase them.

“Paige!” Manny whisper-hisses again, eyes darting all over the neighborhood. A bark comes from a few feet away from them. He winces. “Paige, get back here.”

The girl in question makes her way under the police tape and rushes to the heap of wood where the living room should have been. She balances on a stump and carefully hops on another as she climbs to the top. Once she gets there, just as Manny jumps over the tape, she moves aside the charred wood as quietly as possible.

“Paige, we can’t be here,” Manny moves to where she is with much difficulty in keeping silent as a piece of wood crumbles under his weight. Robin and Harry are right behind him. “We need to get out of – whoa.”

At the very bottom of the pile, which Paige has just newly dug a clear way to stick her arm into, is a small, glowing orb of blue light that sounds like it’s humming.

“What is it?” Robin asks as he and Harry stop beside Manny and follows his line of sight, muttering ‘wow’ under his breath as he sees the glowing object.

Paige sticks her hand into the hole she’s made and touches the blue orb.

Harry, Manny and Robin’s heads snap to her and they attempt to grab her, “No!”

The light explodes upon contact with her skin, throwing them off of the pile and right back onto the road. It rips through the police tape and sends bits of the wood and boards flying into houses and hitting cars. Dogs rise from their sleep, growl and run to their fences to start barking at their direction.

The boys raise their arms to cover their heads as debris fly, hitting cars all over the street. Harry gasps as pieces fly towards their sedan and sigh in relief when they bounce off the field of protection around the car that pulses blue on impact. Soon, the entire street is ringing with car alarms.

The light dies down just a few seconds later, with Paige safely sitting on a newly emptied spot, looking at her hand in fascination as the last wisps of the blue light dissolve into nothingness.

From the house beside where she is, someone turns on a lamp.

“What is that? What’s going on?”

“Are there burglars?”

“It’s so noisy.”

More and more lights turn on and pretty soon, Harry can see silhouettes make their ways down stairs to check on what’s happening.

He gets to his feet, bolts over to Paige, grabs her wrist and puts her inside the car at the same time Robin and Manny get in their seats. He restarts the engine that had died waiting for them and drives off as fast as he can. Which is, at this point, way more than breaking speed limit.

 

* * *

 

 

Harry knows that his friends are itching to get the bottle of beer out of his hands, half because they’ve made it their job to make sure he doesn’t fall off the sobriety wagon again and because they want to get a drink themselves. He’s thankful they don’t, because he doesn’t know what else he’s got to ground himself. He guesses he can’t blame Robin if the guy wants to kill a few people every now and then.

In the other room, Shrignold and Paige are having a heated discussion in their guttural, melodic language. Harry’s standing just by the door and his free hand is twitching, hovering over the door knob every few seconds before he decides to retract it and then repeat the process again.

Finally, Manny takes him by the shoulders and gently pries the cold bottle out of his hands and on a drawer. Harry sighs and gives him a pained smile, which the young man returns. It’s hard enough that they’re getting thrown odd jobs while being out of the loop of most things with his drinking habit. To be fair, he’s had it long before the reincarnation debacle.

The door knob turns and Shrignold steps outside. Before he can open his mouth, Harry beats him to it.

“What was that thing she touched back there? What happened? And _why_ can she speak now, she could barely make any noise before!”

Shrignold closes his mouth and frowns. He clears his throat and raises a finger, “Give me a moment before you start firing questions, please.”

He motions for them to follow them into the room. Robin walks over to his friends and they slowly make their way over to where Shrignold has disappeared, not noticing that they were huddled together.

Paige is sitting on the bed patiently together with their friend. The three of them remain standing a few feet away.

Shrignold sighs and gets on with it. “Paige said that the reason she was drawn to the soul piece was because it was calling to her and whenever she stopped or hesitated, she would get a headache and it would start shouting at her.”

Manny blinks. Huh.

“And yes, Robin – ” Shrignold shoots him the man a firm glare when he opens his mouth, “That was a soul piece. That happens when a soul is tampered and violated enough to be ripped to shreds.”

He meets Harry’s eyes at that. The man nods. He knows the story Shrignold’s referring to.

“What Paige saw a while back was her soul piece,” Shrignold finishes.

“How did she know it was her soul piece?” Manny asks.

Paige starts speaking at that, but they don’t understand her. She singing a song in an obscure language that makes all three of them wince.

“She recognized it. It felt like it belonged to her, much like anyone would recognize their own voice,” Shrignold’s facing her as she stops to let him translate. When he’s done, she speaks again and waits for him to do his job. “And while she can’t remember a thing about _why_ her soul is broken, she knows it by instinct.”

Paige says something else and shrugs.

“She says it was probably not a smart thing to do, since anyone would be unsure but when you’ve got no memories to go on, everything feels right.”

“That’s rather deep,” Robin mutters.

Paige shrugs again.

“So, her finding her…a, uh, a piece of her soul,” Harry speaks up, “That’s the thing that makes her speak in…”

“She’s speaking in our native tongue, Harry.”

“Yeah, that.”

“Who we are, what we are and what we should know are hard-wired into our souls.” Shrignold taps his head, “So it’s possible she found the piece that allowed her to gain access of her language faculties. I think the reason you never got the rest of the package was because it was your bodies that got mutated first to accumulate the large amounts of magic your souls are now tied to, but soul mutation is hard.”

Their faces contort in disgust and Shrignold snorts. “Relax, I don’t think that’s going to happen to you anytime soon.”

“So what are we supposed to do with…whatever just happened? Paige finding a piece of her soul?” Robin asks, “Do we just forget about it or is it going to happen again?”

Paige shakes her head and shrugs again. The universal I don’t know.

“There is one thing we can do, though,” Shrignold says, “If this happens again, whether or not by coincidence, then something is definitely up.”

“You mean we’re probably supposed to find the rest of Paige’s soul and put her back together?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s great. There’s seven continents and a large mass of saltwater we call the ocean. How are we supposed to know where her soul’s going to be scattered?”

Shrignold grins, “We either leave that to Fate, or to Luck.”

 

* * *

 

 

“We need to talk about this early on.”

Robin had pulled Manny outside by the sedan as soon as Shrignold had decided there was nothing of urgency to talk about. The younger man shot their friends a worried glance but went outside anyway.

Currently, Manny sits on the hood of their sedan – nervous habit he’d developed over years and years of running and existential discussion – while Robin’s leaning on the side of the car with his arms folded on the roof.

Manny sighs, “Fire away.”

“In the case that we do end up being designated baby sitters for the former Concept of Creativity as she goes on a worldwide mission to fix herself,” he starts.

Manny groans. “Oh boy. Please stop talking like that, it creeps me out,” he mutter under his breath. Robin doesn’t hear him.

“An event which is most likely. Give me one good reason _why_ we should help her.”

“Because the Voices actually told us all those years ago to ‘watch over them’ and this is part of the job unless we want to be smote?”

“That aside. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Manny rubs the back of his neck. “I guess, in that situation, we’d help because it’s the right thing to do? It sounds a little cruel to let someone run around with a broken soul, Robin.” He brings his feet up to sit cross-legged and turns around to face his friend, “We’d help her because that’s what good people do.”

“I think I crossed the line a long time ago.”

“ _That_ aside, please don’t talk about that because that still makes me uncomfortable,” he says. Robin raises both hands in surrender. “We’d help for the sake of helping; if we just let her be miserable, we’re no different than they were when they still had their magic, Robin.”

“They were the ones who put themselves and us in this situation in the first place.”

“Even if! We’re better than them,” Manny says. “Besides, who knows – maybe if she’s whole again, all of that magic will go back to her and we’d be back to normal. Being unkillable and magical has it’s perks, but most of the time, it’s either traumatizing danger or sheer boredom.”

Robin stares at him for a whole minute before sighing. “Going back to normal when she fixes herself would mean we would have to give up both Creativity and Time, and that means finding Tony.” He moves to sit beside Manny, careful to kick off his shoes first because God forbid Harry see him track mud on his beloved car. “And finding Tony means a lot of trouble.”

Robin grumbles, “I hope to God that’ll be worth it.”

Manny glances at him from the side and smiles, “I sure hope so too.”

 

* * *

 

 

They find the next soul piece easy. It wasn’t the first time they’d been to Manchester. Over the years, they’d found it easy to bounce from one familiar place to another. Although somehow, they’d never met any incarnation of Paige and Tony somewhere they’ve been to many times before. It was always someplace new.

The old landlord of their old flat had died so they had no problems about raising any questions about their apparent eternal youth, and it was nice to get inside a place already marked for cloaking.

It was also in the same flat they found her soul piece. And where did she find it?

Her old room.

It was way too convenient. They knew that they needed to find it and that they were _supposed_ to find it but it was just too easy. They weren’t about to look the gift horse in the mouth, but then again, paranoia never hurt. It got them through their old messes before.

One night, Harry wakes up to someone knocking on his door.

Robin’s outside, sporting a bird’s nest for hair, caffeinated wide eyes and a map in his hands.

“Can I come in?”

Harry blinks, looks at the map and then back to Robin.

“Y-yeah sure.”

Robin hasn’t even stepped inside before he starts talking, “Okay, so I thought it was way too easy that we found Paige’s soul piece inside her old room, so I did some thinking.”

Harry bites back the retort on his tongue. Robin looked sleep deprived and for someone who was no longer human, that was saying something.

“And I noticed a pattern.”

He walks over to Harry’s desk and turns on his lamp, then spread the map across it. Harry hovers over his shoulder to watch. There are red X’s all over the map.

“Okay, so we found Paige herself in Vancouver.” He motions around the map, “I don’t have a map of Canada, so I didn’t mark it. However, we found the first soul piece here – back at our old house.”

His finger lands on a X that’s where their old address was.

“And then the new one right here,” he points to Manchester, England. “And then I realized what they all had in common.”

Harry frowns, “What?”

“We’ve all been there before. Not only _been_ there, we lived in them. Vancouver was actually where we lived with the last incarnation of Paige and Tony.” He points back to their first address, “This is where it all started, where they first died. And this is our second address – you remember when Tony died of cancer?”

“Yeah.”

“So maybe we’ll find the rest of the pieces in all the places we’ve lived before,” he points to each of the X’s on the map.

“And you’ve mapped it out?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.” Harry massages his forehead, “I didn’t think you’d take this seriously.”

Robin pauses and then straightens. “No, something was just bugging me about it.”

Harry snorts and laughs. He motions towards the map, “Okay, so according to your theory, where should we go next?”

Thankful for the change in topic, Robin answers, “We could go anywhere we’ve already lived in.”

“Alright, where’s the nearest stop?”

“Here.” Robin’s finger lands on Shrewsbury.

Harry nods and pats his back, “Good job, kid.”

Robin blinks before a goofy smile breaks out on his face. “We’re not in college anymore, arsehat.”

Harry’s laughter trails after him as he leaves the room.

 

* * *

 

 

It feels like a story straight out a book – travelling across country in an old sedan with occasional visits from their local friendly Love bug, on some supernatural quest to piece together a broken soul while trying to avoid raising the attention of anything that might harm them. True, they haven’t been attacked by any other Concepts since the last incarnation of Creativity and Time died, but they could never be too careful.

Besides, when they don’t attract Concepts, they were still free game for other monsters that they’d learned existed. Shtrigas were incredibly brave and incredibly stupid. Wendigos were just a pain in the ass every time they got lost in the woods.

As such, the site where they used to live had been overrun and turned back into a forest, so here they were:  trekking through uneven landscape with dark, towering trees, seeing the occasional abandoned house infested with rot, moss and vines.

“Paige, how much further?”

Paige is perched on top of a rock, head high as she looks around.

Manny fumbles with his flashlight as he tries to replace the batteries. The battery slips out of his hand and he groans as it disappears in the dirt.

“Robin, a little help.”

Up ahead, Robin snaps his fingers and Manny’s flashlight comes to life. The younger man sighs, “Why can’t you just power all our flashlights?”

“I can play with electronic waves, but only for a while,” he shrugs, “Television, telephone and radio are easier than flashlights.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“None of this does.”

Manny searches for his battery until his flashlight shines on the piece of metal sticking out the ground. He pulls it out, wipes it on his jacket and then fits it inside the flashlight. The object flickers for a second.

“There.” Manny huffs and follows his friends.

Paige has already jumped off the rock and ran ahead now. They can see the trees start to thin out as they near the circular clearing a few meters away from them. It was a full moon, and though the leaves were thick enough to obscure the moonlight trying to drift through the forest, the clearing was completely illuminated.

Robin staggers for a second and puts a hand to his head. He groans, “Oh, God.”

“What is it?” Harry asks, stopping beside him.

“I think…” he shakes his head, “I think we’re going find Tony now.”

“Are you getting something?”

“Yeah, it’s uh – like the last one. The clearing,” he points to said clearing up ahead, “And then the…the hand bursting out the ground.”

Somewhere around them, there’s a loud screech.

The rest of them whip their heads to the direction of the noise, eyes wide. There’s the sound of branches snapping and wind rushing, as if someone was running incredibly fast.

Silence for a few seconds.

Then another rush from their right.

“Flashlights off,” Harry hisses. Robin, Manny and Paige do as they’re told.

Harry motions for them to stay silent as they slowly move backward. They move on the balls of their feet, careful not to step on anything that could snap.

There’s another rush in front of them and they all freeze.

Then there’s a loud scream.

All of them turn around to see who’s screaming, but when they see that none of them are, they all curse under their breaths. There’s a loud growl behind Harry.

The man pushes Manny and Robin forward, _“Go!”_

All four of them sprint towards the clearing as the Wendigo roars behind them, easily catching up with its inhuman speed.

“Flare gun! Flare gun!” Manny yells.

Harry drops his flashlight and searches for the flare gun in his jacket. Unfortunately, trying to watch out where he’s going and trying to pat himself down for the gun in a really deep-pocketed cotton jacket was not something to be done at the same time.

“Harry, catch!”

The redhead looks up to see Robin tossing his flare gun at him. He jumps up and luckily catches it, immediately spinning on his heel when he lands, aims and fires it at the Wendigo that’s lunging at him.

It hits the creature right in the stomach and the fire spreads easily. The Wendigo screams, unable to stop its movement towards Harry from the momentum. Harry slips and falls to the ground as the monster crashes on top of him.

“Harry!”

The others skid to a stop and rush towards him. Robin suddenly spasms and falls to the ground, screaming.

Manny’s eyes flit between Harry trying to push off the pile of burning flesh off of him and Robin trying to get control of himself.

“Paige, get Robin to the clearing!” he yells before running off to help Harry. The former Concept nods, grabs Robin and puts his arm across her shoulders as she helps him walk.

Harry is writhing under the burning monster on top of him. Manny grabs the thing by the shoulders and grits his teeth, ignoring the sizzle of his skin as he and Harry attempt to push the corpse off.

The weight proves too much for them and Manny slips once, nearly slamming 500 pounds of burning monster flesh back on Harry.

“Come on!” Manny grunts as he and Harry press the balls of their palms onto the Wendigo, heaving. The corpse is finally lifted off of Harry and then pushed to the side. The man scrambles to his feet, majority of his clothes burned. Their hands are shaking with angry red holes that still sizzle and smell of burning flesh.

Manny sinks to the ground, breathing hard. Harry leans on the nearby tree and meets his eyes.

“Let’s never do that again,” he says.

“Harry! Manny!”

Manny slowly crawls around to look at the clearing where Robin’s calling them from. They can vaguely make out three shapes, one sprawled out on the forest floor, Paige kneeling beside said shape and then Robin waving at them.

Harry and Manny sigh in collective relief, “They found Tony.”

 

* * *

 

 

Finding Paige’s soul piece was easy after that. Recovering from burns, despite their regenerative abilities, wasn’t.

Harry still scratches at his palms for the phantom pain of burns.

So far, they’ve had a good run. Paige is making progress – she still doesn’t speak any human language (just that eno-thingy Shrignold said), but she is starting to know her way around crafts, and has been a lot more energetic than when she first arrived.

Harry appreciates it that she couldn’t remember anything because otherwise, the last few months would have been a very awkward ordeal.

Tony was still passed out and looked just as eerie as Paige did. Bleached white skin and pitch black hair in place of his usual blue, black and gold colors.

“How many more do we have to go?” Harry asks.

Robin unfolds the map on the desk again. Beside the red X’s on the areas they’ve stayed in were blue checks and half of them were finished now.

“About…” he counts them, “Three? Three and we’re done.”

Harry can feel his chest get significantly lighter. Finally. While he had no qualms babysitting anyone, babysitting an interdimensional terror was pushing it.

Manny raises his hand, “What about Tony?”

They pause and turn to him. Manny shifts, “If we’re supposed to find pieces of Paige’s soul, doesn’t that mean we have to do the same to Tony?”

Oh. Right.

Damn it, why wasn’t anything easy?

 

* * *

 

 

“We found the new piece just fine,” Harry says. Shrignold hums on the other side of the line. “And we found Tony too.”

That makes the Concept of Love fall silent for a few seconds. _“And?”_

“And we found him just as…unnerving as Paige was – he was also wearing a very torn tux.”

_“They really are fresh from the grave, aren’t they? Well, do you already have a plan on piecing together his soul?”_

“Yeah, that’s kind of…no. We don’t.”

Shrignold chuckles. _“You found a way to look for Paige’s. I’m sure you’ll find Tony’s just fine.”_

Harry exhales loudly, “Thanks for the positivity, man. Really need it.” His eyes move up to the ceiling as he thinks something over, “Where have you been, by the way? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

_“Me? I’ve just been checking up in our home. Nothing too dangerous.”_

“How are things there?”

_“Significantly quiet from when you were all first brought to attention.”_

“So nobody’s trying to kill us?”

_“Oh, no, a lot of people would love to kill you, except…”_

“Except what?”

He hears Shrignold draw in a sharp breath, _“It’s **amazing** , Harry. The Voices have finally chosen to step in and it’s like – it’s like they were just waiting to see what the Concepts would do in reaction to your situation and now that everything’s drawing to a close, they’re making sure everyone is accounted for.”_

“What do you mean?”

_“Not a single Concept can harm you because you’re under the Voices’ protection now.”_

Harry clicks his tongue. That sounds both awesome and terrifying.

“Why now? You said it yourself, it’s like everything’s drawing to a close, so why would they choose to step in now?”

_“I think the whole situation was made to be a lesson to everyone,”_ Shrignold says, _“Why we shouldn’t overstep our boundaries and how everything can fall apart if we all butt heads due to the fact that we have spades of pride.”_ Harry doesn’t need to see his friend to know he’s shaking his head, _“You should have seen the small uprising in here during the whole ‘hunt the abominations down’ fiasco. Others thought you should be left alone, the others didn’t; fights started, friendships started falling apart.”_

“And now?”

_“We’re slowly picking up.”_

“That’s good.” Harry tries to imagine creatures thousands of years old, falling apart due to a difference in opinion about an anomaly in their presence. How odd it must have been – he’s been living in a world where change always happens and still, people reacted violently, but for an unchanging society that’s existed since the beginning of time to suddenly have something new. Something so small, but so different. Enough to throw it in a loop.

“How about you, are you okay?”

_“Yeah, I’m great. Most people are glaring less at me.”_

Harry laughs at that.

“Hey listen, I’ve been wondering.”

_“That’s dangerous.”_

“Shut up. I’ve been wondering – if we can find Paige and Tony’s souls, even if they’ve apparently been torn apart…can we find yours?”

The pause grows to be uncomfortable after a few minutes.

_“Harry…I don’t think that’s an option.”_

“Yeah, but isn’t that a possibility?”

_“Yes, I know, but – ”_

“Then how about after we finish with these two – if we finish, and I hope we do – we try to find yours?”

Shrignold breathes in slowly and lets it out, _“Listen, Harry. I really, really appreciate the thought of finding the rest of my soul, I really do. But the thing is…we’ve talked about this. I don’t think I’m ready for...w-whatever it was I’ve left behind.”_

Harry looks down and chews the inside of his cheek, thinking.

_“Time and Creativity…you know, they have to find their souls. They have to remember. They have each other, it’s important to them. Me…I have no idea what I left behind, Harry. I’m just grasping at straws. What if there’s nothing to remember – what if I’m better off the way I am right now?”_

He doesn’t answer. Thankfully, Shrignold doesn’t hang up over the minutes he stays silent.

“Okay,” he finally says, “But remember, that if you ever change your mind, we’ll be ready to help, buddy.”

He can hear the smile in Shrignold’s voice.

_“Thank you.”_

* * *

 

 

They were almost done. Robin said they only needed to go back to Margate and Lowestoft and then they were finished. Paige – or Creativity, she still didn’t know which name she really went by – was going to be fixed.

Of course, they never used the term ‘fixed’ around her, they were too nice for that. (Well, Robin did, but she thought it was funny so that was okay) But she knew the basics from what small flashes of memories she could obtain. She needed to be completed again to be able to function properly.

Time was a bit more unfortunate than she was.

They still hadn’t found any trace of his soul and he was still a blank-eyed walking mess. He couldn’t even speak, not even in their own language.

Which was why she was mostly aggravated whenever Harry and the others had to leave and she had to watch over him. He was so _unbearably boring!_ All he did was stare at things all day. She’d tried to get him to paint, nothing; the magic box with the people inside didn’t make him laugh even if it was funny or someone lost a limb; he didn’t panic when they ran into a vengeful spirit during that one stormy night and really needed some place to rest and ended up in an old house.

Once, she’d set his hair on fire.

He was a squeaking mess for a few seconds, which was really interesting, but that was it. Halfway through, he lost focus and returned to being a silent waste of space. Manny doused the fire later.

_“What is it going to take to make you tick?”_ she mutters to herself. She’s tried talking to him plenty of times before. No such luck.

He’s staring at Harry’s pocket watch intently. The man had given it to him earlier today, to try and jog his memory, he’d said.

Paige would tell him it’d probably get no results, and she’d be right, but hey, Harry starts drinking the gross stuff out the bottle when he’s stressed and she hates the smell of it.

They’re both silent enough to hear the rhythmic _tick, tick, tick_ of the object. It was quiet enough to be kind of soothing.

Paige moves to sprawl herself on the couch.

Time doesn’t move. He just stares at the watch.

Paige starts singing softly under her breath, _“This’s gospel…for the fallen ones…”_

She taps her fingers to the beat of the song, feeling the vibration on the couch. _“Locked away in permanent slumber…”_

She understands the English language enough to be able to translate it, but as for pronouncing and speaking the words themselves…that was a hurdle that just didn’t make sense, like there was some sort of restriction on her.

Whatever. As long as she could hear the boys’ music choices and be able to sing them herself, she thinks it’s fine.

_“Assembling their philosophies, on pieces’ve broken memories.”_

She doesn’t notice Time’s eyes slide towards her.

_“This is the beat of my heart, this is the beat of my heart.”_

Heartbeats. She’s never had one. Well, she vaguely remembers that she _used_ to have one but right now, she doesn’t even know if she has a heart. She tried checking, but then they said she wasn’t allowed to. In case she doesn’t wake up again.

**“You have a nice voice.”**

She stops and then rolls over to look at Time. He doesn’t look alert; eyes are still glassy but they’re looking right at her. She opens her mouth before choosing to close it. Huh. She didn’t really…yeah, she hadn’t expected this.

Paige grins.

She extends a hand towards him, _“Do you have a heartbeat?”_

Time tilts his head curiously.

_“Heartbeat,”_ she sits up and points to her chest, _“Most living things have hearts that pump blood throughout their body in order to deliver oxygen. Without oxygen, the living things can’t function. Without a heart, there’s nothing to pump blood to deliver oxygen.”_ She explains proudly, easily retaining new information she’s gained the past several months. _“Whenever the heart pumps it makes a sort of sound. Like, lubdub….lubdub.”_

Paige slinks off the couch and onto the floor, crossing her legs. _“I don’t have a heartbeat,”_ she says, _“I don’t know if I have a heart.”_

Time looks at the hand she has on her chest and then mimics it. He raises a shaky hand and places it over the left side of his chest.

Paige looks at him expectantly. He looks down at his hand and then back to Paige.

She frowns and looks at the floor. Well, if she didn’t have a heartbeat, then he probably didn’t either. That was expected. It would have been nice though.

Her face lights up.

She scoots closer to him and pries the pocket watch out of his grasp. With her free hand, she takes the one on his chest and then places the watch inside of it. She folds his fingers on the watch so he can grasp it and replaces it over his chest.

Creativity giggles, _“You are Time, after all.”_ She places her hand over his and then rests her head near it. Time looks at her curiously as she feels and listens to the tick of the clock.

What a fitting heart.

 

* * *

 

 

Empty houses were a blessing for the poor. They were nowhere near a motel and it was already getting close to midnight, so they had to find someplace to sleep. Luckily there was one empty house nearby. Getting the locks open was no problem.

The family that owned it was probably on a vacation, but what they didn’t know wouldn’t them. Badly, anyway.

“What is that horrible noise?”

Said noise was coming from the garage, where they’d parked the Cadillac. They were fortunate that the neighborhood had its houses spaced far apart, otherwise the racket downstairs would wake people up.

Harry stumbles out of his borrowed room just in time as Robin and Manny do.

“Who is playing Uptown _Fuck_ at this time of the night?” Robin grumbles as he runs a hand through his head.

“Do you think it’s Paige?” Manny yawns. Robin huffs and stomps his way to the garage.

Harry blearily watches him swear his way downstairs, instead choosing to stand beside Manny as they wait for the yelling to start.

“She’s been really upbeat lately,” Manny says. Harry nods.

She has. Even when they still haven’t found anything resembling Tony’s soul (not that they knew what it looked like), she was even causing Time to start being responsive. He spoke sometimes, in short, often stuttering, sentences in their native tongue. He reacted to things more often and when before, Paige would grab the chance to stay away from the boring drone of a man, she was choosing to spend time with him. Time, to his credit, tried to get into whatever activity she presented as best as he could.

It was sort of adorable.

“We’re a few hours from Margate, so we’ll get there tomorrow,” Harry says, “She’ll get even more cheery once we do.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to find Tony’s soul, though?”

Harry looks up the ceiling.

There’s a loud crash from the garage – Robin probably broke the door again. Oh, well. The music abruptly starts and just like they expected, the yelling starts. Harry smiles.

“We might not need to,” he says. A few seconds later, Paige runs inside the house with a huge smile on her face, dragging a lumbering Tony behind her. “I think Paige would be enough to breathe life back into him.”

_“Paige, get the fuck back here!”_

She shouts something, mostly likely a taunt, back at Robin before racing up the stairs, past them and into the attic.

Manny laughs, “Yeah, I think she might.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Paige?”

Shrignold snaps his fingers in front of the woman’s face. She doesn’t stir. Beside her, Time patiently waits, worry flickering on his features every few minutes or so.

They’d reach Margate shortly into morning, found their old place and then her soul piece. After taking it back, Paige collapsed. It had been three hours from the incident and she still hadn’t woken up.

“This’s probably a hard hit,” Manny mutters, “It’s the second to the last piece, after all.”

“I’m still worried about something else, though,” Robin moves to stand between his friends and Harry steps aside to make room. “I remember Shrignold saying they’d theoretically be able to take back their abilities when Successors are no longer needed. Easily, even, since magic settles back to its original host faster. If that’s the case,” he turns to Harry, “Why isn’t the magic slowly settling back into Paige?”

It hits Harry like a wall of bricks. In the midst of the constant moving and unexpected fun of their travel, he hadn’t noticed. He wasn’t fond of using magic either, not like Robin and Manny were, but…now that he thinks about it, Robin was right.

“I-it’s permanent?” Manny’s voice is small. He sounds just like the scared kid he was years ago, and Harry has long sworn _never again. Never again._

He’s failing again.

On the bed, Paige abruptly sits up and inhales a sharp breath.

Time and Love lean back instinctively.

Paige gasps as she works on steadying her breathing, eyes wide and unfocused. Harry’s stomach starts to turn hot.

He can see the thoughts run through her head, can feel the magic thrumming through his veins and sparking, but not lessening. Not lessening.

Paige’s head snaps to turn to them, black hair whipping around as she does. They all swallow thickly.

“What…”

Somehow, her able to speak English brought more ominous than relieved feelings.

That glint is back in her eyes as her gaze settles on him and she grits out, “Drive to Lowestoft. _Now.”_

 

* * *

 

 

The entire ride was silent and they didn’t dare make any stops. Every time they ran low on gas, Harry reversed time on the car so the tank was refilled again. If their lack of need for sleep didn’t help in making it through the night, Paige’s presence in the backseat did.

It was weird, feeling scared of her again. They probably shouldn’t, but with the instinct buried in their bones deeper than their magic ran, they couldn’t help it. Both Harry and Robin stayed silent, Manny was sweating nervously as he was crammed in the backseat with Tony and Paige and Shrignold, the lucky bug, was able to get out of the situation because the car didn’t have enough room for all of them.

As soon as they arrived, Paige gets out the car first and searches for the last piece of her soul. Tony follows after, and the others think about booking it, but Creativity sends one glare towards their direction when they stay in the car a second longer and they’re immediately on their feet. Better not incur her wrath when she was so close to being her old self again.

She finds the piece and unfortunately doesn’t pass out like they were hoping her to be.

Paige looks at her hands as the last of the blue light dissolves into nothingness and waits.

She turns her hands over, looks at her arms and rushes to the nearest mirror. Harry and the others frown in confusion.

“No. No _no no,_ ” she mutters under her breath, “No, you cannot put me through all of that just for _nothing!”_

She starts combing her hands through her hair and gives out a cry in annoyance. Then they realize – her hair is still black with barely any strand of color, her arms are still bleached white and she hasn’t changed at all.

There’s no fireworks display, no fanfare and they can definitely still feel the magic running through their bodies.

Time looks confused, as dull-looking as ever.

“We did what we were supposed to do,” Manny whispers, “Now what?”

Harry looks at Paige, who’s still staring at the mirror, distraught.

He hangs his head, “I don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

 

It has been three days since the Lowestoft incident and nobody has stepped foot outside the house.

Paige has locked herself in her old room, Time was confused over her new behavior and the boys didn’t think it would be wise to leave without Paige telling them to do so. In other words, everyone was under a self-imposed grounding.

“To be honest, I never thought it was gonna end this way,” Robin hugs his knees tighter to his chest. Time stares at him with a frown. Manny shifts in his seat. Harry pinches the bridge of his nose.

“How did you expect it to go then?”

“With more flair,” he shrugs, “A lot of blood.”

“Yeah, us getting killed once they got their magic again did seem like a very likely end,” Manny says. Robin gestures towards him to support his claim.

Harry rolls his eyes, “I think we just have to go with what we have.” He crosses his arms, “Either way, we’re still miserable even if it is anticlimactic.”

The room’s tension thickens.

Manny folds his hands together and rests his chin on them. “This is how the world ends,” he says under his breath, “Not with a bang but with a whimper.”

“It seems like it,” Robin says, then shrugs, “But what can we do?”

The youngest in the room hums as he considers the question. He clicks his tongue, “We can get off our asses and actually _do_ something about it.”

Manny rises from his seat and makes his way up.

“Manny? Manny!” Harry calls after him, standing up as well, “Manny, are you crazy?”

Manny laughs, “Which one of us isn’t?”

He doesn’t bother knocking on the room and just opens it once he finds it unlocked. From her position on the bed, Paige glares up at him.

“What do you want?”

“Listen,” he starts. It’s a miracle his voice isn’t shaking. “I know that you hate us and whatever I’m going to say is probably going to be ignored, but if you just _listen_ to me for once,” he says, “We can help you.”

“What could you possibly do?” she scoffs, “Need I remind you that you’re going up against an entity that can make us go through lives in a single snap of their fingers and not break a sweat.”

“We got you this far, Paige. Without your help, might I add, so you should seriously consider,” he says, “The Voices aren’t against us. They even have the rest of your Family off our backs because we’re under their care now, and our job is to watch over you and I don’t think it’s done yet. No, we haven’t fixed Tony yet and we sure as hell haven’t fixed you.”

Paige’s eyes narrow further. Seeing as she doesn’t say anything, Manny grows a bit more confident and continues. “And if we try, I think we can finish this,” he says, “We just have to work together.”

“Are you actually pulling a ‘power of friendship’ card over me?”

“God, no,” he scrunches up his face, “No, I’m asking for a truce. Because let’s face it, this is the only card we can play right now.”

Paige raises her head and looks at him for a moment, hostility melting away. She looks tired, he thinks. Really tired. Anyone would be, in her situation and they’ve all been through a lot. They all deserve a break.

“What can you do?” she asks. The weariness in her voice is an odd thing to hear. “What can you do that even we can’t? I can’t feel any other pieces of me floating around in timespace, Manny. We’re supposed to be at the end of it all – what do you do when you’re lost at the end?”

Manny looks down, brow furrowed, before his expression softens.

He remembers his projects back at school, when he’d get frustrated over them and ask for help. He remembers getting confused over his lessons and flipping through pages of his book, scanning every single word. He remembers writing his first short story and spending days sitting beside a table with papers and pens scattered, working out the plot and the character development and the overall challenge of learning how to write. He remembers his college days of cramming and chugging red bull and monster.

He meets Paige’s eyes.

“You go back to the beginning.”

Every time he got frustrated with a lesson, he always went back to the beginning and reviewed everything and somehow, the answer that was unclear before popped up at him like it was the most obvious thing in the world – and it was, now that he had picked up pieces from the rest of the chapter. Every time he got frustrated with a project, he started over again and it was easier because now he knew how he wanted things to work and how to do them. Every time he got confused with his plots, he went back to the beginning and everything was easier to connect now that he had the resolution. Cramming was easier when he knew parts of the core topic.

Paige’s eyes light up and he can see her hair start to curl up in excitement. That was better than nothing.

Her door opens again as Harry, Robin and Tony burst in, all wide-eyed and ready to see Manny splattered all over the walls. Thankfully, that was not the case.

“You!” Paige points to Harry, “Drive.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was another sleepless, stopless drive back to the street where they all used to live. Where it all began.

Harry supposes it was fitting. This was where everything – and he means _everything;_ from being close friends with Robin to meeting Manny to having Paige and Tony as roommates to the torture to the trial to the reincarnations that went on and on and to Paige finding the very first part of her shredded soul – this was where everything started.

At the little street with near identical houses where they all met.

The ride isn’t suffocating anymore though, and that was an improvement. Everyone seems hopeful.

Harry’s phone rings.

He looks at Robin, who takes the signal and takes his phone off the dashboard to answer it. He puts it on loudspeaker, “Hello?”

_“Harry, Robin.”_

“Shrignold?”

_“Listen, at all costs, do **not** go back to your old house. The one that burned down.”_

Harry frowns, “Shrignold, we’re actually a few hours away from there now.”

_“What? No, you – don’t – ugh.”_ Love sighs, _“Look, they know about the last soul piece that’s there.”_

Manny and Paige look at each other with ‘oh my God, we were totally right’ expressions on their faces.

_“And the ones who want to see you dead are waiting for you. They pitched a fit enough for the Voices to let them go and see what they do.”_

“You mean they gave up?”

_“No, I think they’re curious about what’s going to happen if they let this go on.”_

“Holy shit, do none of you have common sense and one of self-preservation?”

_“Hey, I do! Why do you think I’m calling?”_

“Shrignold, we can’t stop,” Paige leans forward to poke her head into the space between the seats in the front.

_“Paige?”_

“The one and only.”

Robin mutters a “You’re not the only person named Paige in the world” and she sends him a glare that makes her eyes flare red.

“We need to get back there, that’s how we’re going to finish this,” she says.

_“I am not letting you make my friends drive to their deaths!”_

“They’re not complaining. Actually, Manny suggested we return back to where everything started,” she glances at everyone through the rearview mirror.

Shrignold stays silent.

“Shrig,” Manny leans forward this time, “They’re going to keep waiting there even if we try to stay away and when they get tired, they’ll come after us. What are we supposed to do?”

There’s a few seconds before Shrignold sighs.

_“I…Just be ready. I’ll try to get help.”_

“Thanks, man,” Harry says.

Shrignold hangs up.

“So,” Robin leans back into his seat and looks at Manny through the mirror, “It looks like the world still ends with a bang after all.”

Manny leans back as well and sighs, “In the arms of my brother.”

“Well, we’re all going to die,” Robin turns to the ones in the backseat. Paige crosses her arms, “You seem chipper.”

“I’m tired. I just want it to go on record that I fucking hate every single person in this car.”

“Likewise.”

Time makes a noise that might be a yes.

Manny squawks.

Harry frowns.

 

* * *

 

 

The Cadillac comes to a stop a few feet away from the burnt mess. It still wasn’t touched and the dust-coated police tape had been broken and shredded from the last time they were there.

Harry spots Loyalty’s yellow locks before he even brakes.

“Should have known,” Paige mutters, “That’s Prudence right there. I remember the life when I was a kid – I cannot believe this evil bitch is Mercy’s sister.”

“Huh,” Harry climbs out the car as the rest of them do. He slams the door close, “Is this Mercy a good person though?”

“Sweeter than molasses.”

Robin cackles, “Nice analogy.”

“Thank you.”

There are a lot more Concepts with Prudence this time. Harry is sure that they are going to die. They don’t have any weapons, save the Time Sword in the trunk and they had no idea whether Manny or Tony was going to use it. There were five of them, six if Shrignold decided to show up, but they were still vastly outnumbered. Not in the hundreds, but there were definitely more than thirty Concepts sitting on the pile of charred wood and ashes.

Floating on top of the pile was a bright sphere of multicolored lights.

“Is that it?” Harry points to the sphere. Paige nods.

Manny walks to the trunk and pops it open. He picks up the object swaddled in blankets and unwraps them reveal Tony’s sword, sharp and shiny as ever. It hums under his touch, magic clicking together with the one in his body.

He uncomfortably turns to Tony and hands it over to him.

The man frowns at the sight of the sword and gingerly grasps the handle.

He waves it around and tests it out before shaking his head and saying something to Paige.

She makes a face, “He says that whatever it is, it’s not responding to him.”

“Really?” Manny is incredulous as he takes the sword again. It hums happily. “Wow. That’s…wow. You know I actually sort of missed this thing and I barely use it.”

They all turn to the site of the house again. Paige catches Prudence’s eye. The Concept grins. Creativity growls.

“Let’s go,” she says, marching over and making sure every step she makes sounds with a _clack_ as her high heels hit the asphalt. Time glances at them before following.

The boys look at each other. They steel their jaws and do the same.

“Hey, bubblegum bitch.” Paige stops right in front of the pile.

Harry swallows. There are a _lot_ of Concepts here.

Prudence straightens, “Ooh, the scrap has nerve.” They chuckle, “What is it, Creativity?”

“I think you have what’s rightfully mine,” Paige points to the multicolored ball of light, “Now, we can do this easy or we can do this hard.”

“Which option has you dying?”

**_“Neither.”_ **

Paige blinks and turns to Tony. He steps beside her and glares as much as he can with his limited control over his facial features.

**_“She’s not dying. None of us are.”_ **

_“I can fight that claim, Time,”_ Prudence spits his name out like a curse.

“Can I join the argument?”

Everyone turns to the sound of the voice. Shrignold stands with a huge grin on his face behind Harry and the others.

“Shrig!”

“Holy shit, I thought we agreed to never call me that.”

“We’re about to die, let me call you whatever I want.”

“Fuck you, Harold.”

“Did you get any help?”

Shrignold sadly shakes his head no. Harry’s face falls. Fuck.

“I, however,” the Concept of Love pulls out a sharp, two-feet long silver blade behind him and twirls it around as a smirk breaks out on his face, “Have this.”

Harry smells ozone and sulfur in the air and frowns in confusion when the first thing he thinks is _death._

“And this is the blade of Azrael, Archangel of Death. Yes, it can kill a Concept.”

Prudence growls from where they stand. “That’s enough,” they grit out and scoop up the last piece of Paige’s soul. “Destroy them and be quick with it.”

“Harry,” Paige turns to him, “You remember the last time you fought Prudence.”

Oh, dear.

The Concepts from the pile stand up and rush at them.

Harry closes his eyes and claps his hands together. They all watch as the Concepts freeze in place. Paige sprints past the frozen bodies and towards Prudence. Several pieces of wood collapse under her weight, slowing her down.

“She’s not going to make it,” Robin chases after her, “Manny, come on!”

His friend follows. Tony steadies Harry as he starts to collapse.

“Ten seconds,” Harry puts a hand to his mouth to stop the oncoming vomit. This was why he _never_ isolated time if he could help it.

Paige pulls her leg out the hole it’d fallen through and grabs a beam of wood to start crawling up. Shrignold stands ready by Harry.

“Five!”

Robin catches up to Paige easily and catches her just as another beam breaks under her foot and she falls. He pushes her up.

“Two!”

“Shit. Manny!”

Manny braces his sword as he reaches the bottom of the pile.

“One!”

Paige’s hand is inches away from the glowing sphere when time unfreezes and Prudence’s eyes go wide. They pull back the soul piece and lunge their hand forward. Robin pulls Paige back and catches Prudence’s wrist and squeezing it as hard as he can.

Prudence screams. Paige tackles them by the waist with a cry and they both tumble down the small hill.

Robin grabs the soul piece as soon as they do and steps up to the top. Manny turns around to see the other Concepts rushing up at them.

Meanwhile, Harry’s being hefted up Tony’s shoulder while Shrignold jumps in front of them to bat oncoming streams of hot water and other swords being swung at them.

Tony slowly moves back and Harry lifts his head and turns it to see what’s going on. There’s a spear aimed towards Shrignold’s side. “Shrignold, three o’clock!”

Shrignold turns just in time to catch Loyalty’s spear and then swing the angel blade at them. Loyalty jumps back and the sword only catches the front of their coat. They growl.

“Get me back there,” Harry tells Tony. He makes a noise but sets a shaky Harry on his feet. The redhead staggers before steadying.

There are already people getting past Shrignold and going towards them. One of them swings a punch at him and Harry catches their fist, instantly making their eyes droop and they drop on the ground, unconscious.

He sees another blow coming but can’t move fast enough and closes his eyes, waiting for it.

Instead, he hears a slap of skin that indicates someone caught it. Harry opens his eyes – Tony’s caught the Concept’s arm. The former embodiment of time smacks his free hand on the enemy’s forehead and their eyes roll to the back of their head. They drop as well.

Harry grins. There may be hope for them yet.

From where he stands, Robin slides down the hill and follows Creativity and Prudence, still tangled in a heap that’s trying to roll around so one of them can get on top. At the moment, Paige is triumphant and currently has Prudence’s good arm pinned to the ground while her other hand is fisted in the Concept’s hair and is repeatedly smashing it into the dirt.

Prudence blinks up through the blood obscuring their vision and catches sight of him.

They yell something in their native tongue. Paige gives out another enraged growl and pounds their head into the dirt harder.

Robin hears Manny scream on the other side of the pile.

He stops and turns around, “Manny!”

“Go, Robin! Go!”

There are Concepts on the top of the hill now, looking down at him and pointing before chasing after him. Robin grits his teeth and rushes over to where Paige is.

Prudence wrenches their arm out of Paige’s grasp and, ignoring their broken wrist, grabs both Creativity’s arms and then rolls them over several times, getting them farther away from Robin.

Robin yelps as someone jumps on his back.

“Paige!” he extends the hand that’s holding the sphere of light as far as he can, “Paige!”

Paige lands on her back and Prudence cackles, laugh gurgling through their blood.

Robin pushes his free hand on the ground and tries to crawl forward. He’s successful for a few seconds before another weight jumps on his back. He screams as he feels his spine be pressured.

He tries to wave his arm around when the Concepts reach out for the soul piece.

“Paige!”

Paige is currently pushing away Prudence’s hands away from her neck. She glances at Robin, “WHAT?!”

“You better catch!”

Robin pushes himself off the ground as much as he can, pulls his arm back and chucks the multicolored sphere at her direction.

Paige’s eyes widen. She swears, pulls back a hand to punch Prudence with enough force to knock her to the side and then dives for her soul piece as it hits the ground.

Another Concept jumps on Robin’s back. He falls to the ground face-first and bites his tongue, severing it in the process.

He doesn’t see whether Paige made it.

There’s a blast of white light behind his eyelids.

There’s screaming everywhere.

And then there’s darkness.

 


End file.
